# Overachieving book readings **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 18, 2007, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472 "2007-03-18T18:48:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472/21 "2007-03-19T12:50:28Z")
When I was in second grade, I was reading _Newsweek_ every week. Everyone once in awhile, the teacher would pass out “My Weekly Reader” and I was unimpressed, since the news was three weeks old and major parts of the story were cut out. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472/22 "2007-03-19T13:13:35Z")
> [@](#): > > So what books did you read which were ambitious for the situation? I’ve always been anambitious reader. I asked for **Kon Tiki** and **Gulliver’s Travels** as Christmas and birthday presents as a kid. We had the Reader’s Digest condensed version of Kon Tiki, but I wanted the Real Thing. In college, I read **Moby Dick** and **War and Peace** for the heck of it. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472/23 "2007-03-19T13:25:55Z")
My diary says I read Ed McBain’s “Cop Hater” when I was 9 years old! I decided to time reading Stephen King’s unabridge The Stand . Took me 27 hours. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472/24 "2007-03-19T13:30:08Z")
I think the largest slogfest I ever put myself through was a complete collection of Harlan Ellison’s short stories. We were on a two month vacation, so I figured something large would be a good deal. And really, 1200 pages isn’t so bad, but a compilation of short stories by a single author is rarely a good idea. Fairly quickly you get the four or five themes that interest the author, so that becomes a bit monotonous after a while. And Ellison is a pretty monotonal author. He doesn’t have a lot of cheery stories (perhaps none, even.) So the last 2/3rds of the book was pretty monotonous, but I pushed on through. I thought he was a fairly good author, but I’ve never felt a great urge to seek out any more of his work. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472/25 "2007-03-19T13:36:22Z")
My dad read \*Gravity’s Rainbow \* by Thomas Pynchon. I bow at the feet of anyone who can read it, no matter what your age. I can’t make heads or tails of it even with the companion book. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472/26 "2007-03-19T13:59:34Z")
I think that I was about 6 or 7 when I read _A Tale of Two Cities._ ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472/27 "2007-03-19T14:01:24Z")
[QUOTE=lazybratsche] Yeah, I read that when I was twenty, and just thought that Holden was an obnoxious whiny git that needed to be slapped a few times. However, I probably would have identified with him if I was just a few years younger… say, around sixteen or so. [/QUOTE] I did read it when I was sixteen or so, and I thought that Holden was an obnoxious whiny git that needed to be slapped a few times. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472/28 "2007-03-19T14:10:02Z")
[QUOTE=Orual] I read and re-read both _The Wizard of Oz_ and _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ so many times when I was 7 that I effectively had both books memorized. [/QUOTE] At what age did you read TILL WE HAVE FACES? ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472/29 "2007-03-19T14:13:33Z")
Fifth grade- I was (still am) a Monster Kid. Finally tackled Stoker’s DRACULA and Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN. I knew enough then to know I would appreciate them eventually (and still do) but at the time, except for a very view scary passages… YAAAAWN! ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472/30 "2007-03-19T14:18:07Z")
Fifth grade- I was (still am) a Monster Kid. Finally tackled Stoker’s DRACULA and Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN. I knew enough then to know I would appreciate them eventually (and still do) but at the time, except for a very view scary passages… YAAAAWN! Now, there was available at the time a very good CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED comic of FRANKENSTEIN, though not of DRACULA. I’ve seen over the past decade two good children’s level adaptations of both (plus a Hildebrant Brothers illustrated storybook of DRACULA that totally rocks & is now sadly OOP). I’ve have given a limb for those when I was in elementary school! ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472/31 "2007-03-19T14:30:08Z")
I read loads of Asimov as a young teenager. I was very impressed with his concept of psychohistory. I intended to develop it for real myself (being about thirteen years old, and no-one else in history ever having come up with a workable theory, were trivial objections :rolleyes:… ah, good times). So to help get me started, I spent two years on and off, trying to read our school library’s copy of Toynbee’s Study of History. :smack: :smack: :smack: I’d like to say my computer’s currently processing the possible outcomes of the Americo-New Prussian War of 2032 but… well, it isn’t. I’m currently reading, with about as little success, Newton’s Principia. It’s not in Latin, but it might as well be. How he got anywhere without vectors, I’ll never figure out. ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472/32 "2007-03-19T15:02:21Z")
When I was about 12 I was presented with a signed copy of _Debt of Honor_ by Tom Clancy. I tried to read it, but the politics and economics were too much for me at the time and I don’t think I finished it. I finished it at some point and I read most of the Jack Ryan novels in the eighth grade and through high school. In the first grade I did a book report on a Star Trek TNG novel, #2 I think. Of course there was a fair bit of content I didn’t understand. The other kids complained when I was supposed to read part of it aloud and I couldn’t pronounce some of the words. As for Atlas Shrugged as recreational reading in high school, that’s what I did. I’ve heard it’s most common for people to get into that around age 17 or sometimes in college. I first heard her name in a newsgroup, relating to atheism or something, and read most of her books as a junior and senior in high school. ---
**Author:** ![yellowval](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/919ad9/32.png) [@yellowval](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowval)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472/33 "2007-03-19T15:13:57Z")
When I was in junior high/high school we had a program called Accelerated Reader in which we read books, took a test on the computer about the book, and earned points for them. Usually we had to get around 17-20 points per quarter to get an A. One of my choices (I think I was in eighth or ninth grade) was “Gone With the Wind.” I got 78 points for it. I also read “Wuthering Heights” for Accelerated Reader but I think that one was only worth 25 points. “David Copperfield” was another one but I don’t remember how many points that one was worth. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472/34 "2007-03-19T16:01:04Z")
[QUOTE=Fiver] [Rise and Fall of the Third Reich](http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Third-Reich/dp/1567311636/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-2793086-6015002?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174247160&sr=1-1), by William L. Shirer, perhaps? It’s considered the gold standard of Hitler biographies, and it has over 1200 pages. [/QUOTE] I went on a WW2 kick when I was ten or so, took a stab at this but then ended up just skimming it. My sister has a funny story about that book, though. She lent it to a friend who noticed it on her bookshelf. She slipped a bookmark into the book without looking too closely at it. Her friend later teased her, because she’d earlier written on the bookmark when lending it and _another_ book to someone else, “I think you’ll like this book. The characters are little wacky, but the plot is pretty interesting.” ---
**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472/35 "2007-03-19T16:23:54Z")
At the paper where I worked in the early 90s I was effectively “The Ross Perot Desk.” One of my assignments was to follow and report on his various campaigns and read a lot of background. _Kiss the Boys Goodbye_ was pretty good, but on a compressed timescale _Save Your Job, Save Our Country_ was a tough read. Ugh. ---
**Author:** ![DeVena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dec6dc/32.png) [@DeVena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeVena)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472/36 "2007-03-19T16:27:39Z")
I read Bleak House when I was 12. I hate Dickens to this day. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overachieving-book-readings/396472.md?page=1)